Territorial strategies of local government reorganization: The urban political geography of municipal annexation in three Canadian cities, London, Edmonton, and Parksville

Municipal annexation both contains and promotes geographical urban growth. The implicit paradox manifests itself in the political discourse of the territorial reorganization of city-regions. In this discourse annexation is privileged as a spatial policy over alternatives. This study examines the conditions under which annexation came to dominate the political discourse of the city-regions of London, Ontario, Edmonton, Alberta and Parksville, British Columbia. These three cases represent different geographical locations, scales and provincial jurisdictions.;The study concentrates on the procedures, proposals and politics surrounding annexation battles between city and region. Three models are developed which conceptualize the temporal, spatial and procedural processes of annexation. Relationships among annexation, city-region institutional structure, geographic growth and the politics of annexation procedures are examined in light of these models. Context is provided through analyses of provincial policies and procedures governing annexation in particular and spatial dimensions of the local government system in general. Further, a quantitative overview is undertaken through the creation of a data base of annexation frequencies, annexed land area and population for each municipality in the three case study provinces between 1941--91. Descriptive statistical tests are used to compare key variables within each province. Study of the frequencies of annexation reveal provincial variations by growth rates, municipal class structure, regional patterns and historic trends. Case study analyses include historical geographies of the annexation battles between each city and associated region.;The results of this study highlight and analyze the differing visions for land uses held by urban and rural communities, in zones where jurisdictional boundaries divide areas of common interest. Poor stewardship of land, through time, emerges as a major impetus to annexation proposals. Disputes can often be traced to the absence or inadequacy of regional governance, or other institutional structures that would facilitate inter-municipal communication. Such structures would be essential in any attempt at regional planning.